Harris County drops to No. 2 nationally in population growth, according to Census data

Houston-area still ranked No. 2 in the nation for net expansion

After eight straight years of boom - adding more new residents than any county in the nation - Harris County in 2016 felt some of the oil bust's sting.

The county gained a total of about 56,600 people last year, a decline of 37 percent from the previous year, placing it behind Arizona's Maricopa County, which added nearly 81,400 new residents.

The decline was largely attributable to the fact that for the first time in years more people - about 16,000 - left Harris County than moved here from elsewhere in the country, according to Census data released Thursday.

Despite the losses, Harris County held on to its No. 2 position in the nation in overall growth thanks to the number of people moving here from abroad and the number of births.

The greater Houston region, which includes The Woodlands and Sugar Land, also saw the total number of new residents fall by about 21 percent to just over 125,000 in 2016, the lowest in at least the last four years.

The slowing growth after furious - and once seemingly endless - expansion is likely a reflection of the tumbling oil prices that caused losses of more than 81,000 oil and gas jobs in the metropolitan area over the past two years, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics released this month.

More Information

By the numbers

Harris County is no longer the fastest-growing county in the country.

56,600

People Harris County gained in 2016

16,000

more people who left here than moved here

28,000

residents from abroad who moved to Harris County

81,000

oil and gas jobs lost in the region in the past 2 years

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"I expected the numbers to come in a lot lower," said Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research for the Greater Houston Partnership, an economic development organization. "That we had any in-migration when the region was losing jobs is remarkable."

He said the surge in foreign residents could include Americans who were laid off from oil and gas companies with operations abroad or those who returned to the Houston head offices as corporations cut cost.

"But frankly, people are still coming here, and it makes no difference, they see it as a place of opportunity regardless of the oil and gas industry," Jankowski said. "After a while it starts to feed on itself. … the international community is so large here that it's going to continue to grow regardless of what's happening elsewhere in the economy."

Immigration benefits

State demographer Lloyd Potter said Houston's population growth is also powered by its high birth rates, especially among its young, rapidly expanding Hispanic population.

"The net out domestic migration was pretty substantial," Potter said. "That's kind of impressive, to still have the second-highest numeric growth. You would have expected it to slip a little more than that."

Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor and founding director of its Kinder Institute for Urban Research, pointed to the fate of other cities that have seen similar dramatic job declines such as Detroit, where Wayne County last year lost about 7,700 residents, the most in the nation after Chicago's Cook County. Michigan's Republican governor, Rick Snyder, has in the past called for more visas for high-skilled immigrants for the Detroit area, citing the population losses and need for an economic jump-start.

"This is a powerful reminder of how much Houston benefits from immigration," Klineberg said.

Harris County saw a net growth of about 28,000 residents from abroad last year, and the Greater Houston metro region gained about 35,000, a 5 and 7 percent decline, respectively, from the previous year.

That growth helped offset a nearly 200 percent decline in the number of people moving here from elsewhere in the U.S.

In 2015, 17,000 people moved to Harris County from other parts of the country. But last year about 16,000 more people left the county than relocated here. In the greater Houston area, about 28,100 more people came here from elsewhere in the country last year than left.

"Domestic migration is still largely based on oil and gas," Klineberg said.

The slight decline in population growth, rather than an abysmal crash, signals that Houston has managed to diversify its economy more so than during previous oil busts, he said.

"Houston's not going to boom in the absence of oil and gas, but it's also not going to collapse," Klineberg said. "We're moving more into a steady state of equilibrium."

Harris County remained the country's third largest county, after Los Angeles and Cook counties, with 4.6 million people.

"No. 2 is not all that bad. Harris County is still having substantial growth and the state is still booming," said Steve Murdock, a former Census Bureau director who heads the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas at Rice University. "I don't think this is any indication of a long-term pattern of decline for Houston. When gas and oil comes back, we will see that kind of development come back."

'A good lull'

Elsewhere in the state, Texas continued its trademark roar of growth. Fort Worth's Tarrant County, San Antonio's Bexar County, and Dallas County also made the top 10 counties boasting the largest numeric population gain last year.

Hays, Kendall and Comal counties in the Hill Country were among the 10 most rapidly growing areas in the nation by percentage growth. Among metro regions, Austin-Round Rock expanded the fastest in the state, growing by nearly 3 percent to more than 2 million residents last year.

Amy McGee, a Houston realtor who works with relocation agencies moving Exxon Mobil and other oil and gas companies, said the number of people moving here from elsewhere has slowed, but it's still steady.

"It's not like we're taking a hit, but it's not the raging market we have seen for the past two or three years," she said. "Now is the optimal time to buy. … It's a lull rather than a dip, but it's a good lull."

Jankowski, from the Greater Houston Partnership, said his organization forecasts about 29,700 jobs will be created this year, about half of the long-term average. He expects it to start picking up in 2018.

But he sees two bright takeaways. Even slight population growth can help boost the economy as more consumers buy products.

Also, he said, the slowdown, "does give you a chance to catch your breath, to absorb all this growth."

Lomi writes stories about immigrants, the complicated process of immigration, and its consequences. If you're an immigrant, lawyer, critic of the current system or a supporter, an ICE or Border Patrol agent, someone who feels they unfairly lost their job to an immigrant, an asylum seeker or a deportee, send tips and ideas to lomi.kriel@chron.com.